Milanese by birth, but completely educated in Rome, he takes a degree in Architecture in 1937. Alberto Savinio, the De Chirico’s brother, acts as his intermediary to the painting, even though he is  “Stendhalian-natured” and therefore, naturally inclined to the oneiric images, tied more to the  sublime (Friedrich instead of Boecklin) than to the tout-court metaphysics. His natural adherence to a sort of third-hand reconsidered Surrealism follows a style more architectural than pictorical. His masterpieces get so late to the European context, that “Roman sleep” is dated 1955.

It results too much based-on-quotation whereas the fascinating and ably disturbing “The average confession of Palermo”.

This last composition is numbered among the best ones in the Italian Representational painting scenery. Its peculiarity is not only the intellectualism dissolved by a painting at times controlled or sneeringly amused, but also because of a resemblance with a devastating Salvator Rosa. The most mature mirages and buried cities phase is to prefer in relationship with its contemporary taste. Probably, this is due to a similarity more to “Star wars” ‘George Lucas, than to an inspired-from-Dalì’s poetics painter.

 However, wide silences in a post-nuclear world or particularly remote (the two things coexist since the “Hope wreck” of Friedrich) shows his uniqueness in the Italian panorama, so he is still worth admiring.

Bibliography:

Fabrizio Clerici : opere 1938 - 1990 / Centro Iniziative Culturali, Pordenone 2006

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